The Benefits of Painful Experiences

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We're often told that pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. Do you believe that a more pleasant experience is better after it follows a painful one? I do in the sense that I think many things have that kind of contrast effect in the human mind. You know, just because the brain just tends to compare everything to what it just experienced.

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To increase our chances of success (in whatever domain and using definition of success), should we focus on boosting our strengths or shoring up our weaknesses? Are we harsher in our critiques of ourselves than in our critiques of others? What should an ideal inner monologue be like? What are some useful taxonomies of pain? Are there times when irrational, magical, emotionally-driven, and/or delusional types of thinking are useful?

Anna Paley is insatiably curious about how best to live our lives. She is a behavioral scientist and marketing professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She received her PhD from New York University, Stern School of Business in 2017. You can reach her at a.paley@tilburguniversity.edu.

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